Three Year Rotation

Four Year Rotation

If there is enough space, it is better to follow a four year rotational plan rather than a three year one, and if you are going to grow main crop potatoes, a four year plan is really essential. If your plot is being cultivated for the first time, a potato crop will be of great value: they clear the ground in a way that no other crop can equal, and by moving them around the vegetable garden, the plot will be kept reasonably free of weeds.

When planting the potatoes, manure the ground first. A heavy application of manure given to the potatoes will mean that only quite small quantities will need to be given to the following crops during the next three years before that particular patch of land is used for potatoes again. Follow the potatoes with root crops: these need a well-limed soil, and always do best in one which has been manured for a previous crop. If they are sown in freshly manured ground, this causes the roots to grow forked, and their keeping quality will also be reduced. Follow the root crops with legumes, which will increase the nitrogen content of the soil, and this will benefit the fourth and final crop from the plot, the brassicas.

Then start all over again, manuring that site heavily for the potatoes.

There is room in a three year plan for early potatoes, but not really for maincrop ones. The early potatoes can be grown with beetroots, carrots, parsnips, radishes, swedes and turnips, but the site must not be manured. The peas and beans and leeks will follow them on the site, and then the brassicas.

Table 2: Four-year rotation

A Potatoes

B Roots

C Pears&Beans

D Brassicas

There are three year rotation which go the same way except that potatoes will not be included.

Дата добавления: 2015-05-23